Baby Prior

A couple of weeks after we got to Texas I started to not feel very well.  I was soooo sleepy, always nauseous, and my boobs were extremely sore (sorry if that is TMI for some).  Nothing sounded appealing and even my favorite foods made me sick to my stomach to even think about (which sucks because I was trying to get all of my last minute food faves in before we moved to Japan for 3 years and didn’t have access to any of those places!).  I went to lunch with my good friend, Michelle, who recently had a baby.  She and I started trying for a baby around the same time and it took her a while to get pregnant…. not nearly as long as me though because she had a son in April J  I told her how I had been feeling and she and I made a trip to Wal-Mart to buy a few things, including a pregnancy test.  She told me to take it as soon as I got home and to let her know what the result was.  I wanted to take it the next morning (because that is when the package suggests you take it) but she talked me out of it.  As soon as I got home I took the test and it came out negative…. I think.  I am pretty impatient when it comes to certain things and am not good at waiting around for 3 minutes to read pregnancy test results.  As soon as I saw the one line (which means negative) I chunked the test and started to get really sad (a reoccurring thing because we have been trying for a baby for almost a year and a half with the same results every month).  I continued to feel worse and worse as the days went on and hadn’t started my period all month.  I had a very light one in June but thought that had to do with the stress of our move and didn’t think anything of it.  The day before we left Texas, I decided to take another test.  This time I made sure I did it first thing in the morning and lo and behold we got two lines (meaning positive!).  The second line was very faint but I immediately googled it and a few different forums said even the faintest line meant “Yes”.  I still couldn’t believe it so I made Tyler run to Walgreens to pick up an electronic test that actually states “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant”.  He rushed there and back and I took that test and it read “Pregnant”!!!  By that time the lines on the other test had come out very dark and bold so it was definitely a positive.  I honestly think that the test I took the week before was probably positive but I threw it away before it had time to darken up a bit….ooops!  We were so so so excited (definitely an understatement) and couldn’t believe our eyes!  We told our parents who were shocked but thrilled!  We told our immediate family members and a few other people but decided to keep things on the down low for a few more weeks.  This discovery definitely made saying goodbye to our families much more difficult the day we had to leave Texas.  We want our children to be around their grandparents and they want to be around their grandchild (especially since it is my parent’s first grandbaby!).   

Positive!

So happy!  I look like a hot mess but I had just woken up!

Thrilled he is going to be a daddy!

The morning after we arrived in Japan, I went and got put into the system for our insurance and got enrolled in everything out here.  I called and made an appointment and they told me to come in for a urine test to confirm my pregnancy before setting up an appointment.  I went and did that and a nurse called me a few days later to let me know the test was positive and to discuss a few things.  Because I had a light period in June, she was putting me at 13 weeks already (because they don’t count spotting as a period).  Tyler and I were freaking out because I had done nothing to prepare for a baby!  I hadn’t taken any prenatal vitamins, I was eating bad, and even had a couple of drinks in Texas with some friends (obviously before I knew I was pregnant).  The nurse wanted me to see the doctor right away and was able to schedule me for an appointment a few days later.  In the meantime, I went in and filled out all of my paperwork, got my labs done, and took a “Welcome to Pregnancy” class at the hospital.  Tyler went with me to the first appointment and it was such a neat experience!  We got to hear the baby’s heartbeat and saw the little bean during the ultrasound!  After the doctor did my measurements, he determined that my June spotting was indeed a period and that I was only 9 weeks.  That was a relief for both Tyler and I and the doctor gave me a due date of March 22.  

Pardon the misspelling of my name lol

As the weeks went on I was feeling sicker and sicker and was starting to vomit from time to time.  All I wanted to do was lay down and rest and thankfully I was able to do that because I am not currently working.  I had a lot of trouble eating and every time I went in to see the doctor I lost more and more weight.  At my last doctor’s appointment I had already lost 10 lbs since arriving on the island.  I am doing better now and am finally getting my appetite back but am still having nausea. 

Our last appointment was on September 12 for our 12 week checkup.  The nurse that was prepping me was new and wasn’t really sure how to check the baby’s heartbeat.  He had someone training him but clearly she didn’t know what the heck she was doing either.  They had me sitting up and were trying to find it that way…. and it didn’t happen.  The first thing I had asked them was “Do we get an ultrasound today?!?” and they said no.  After they had trouble finding the heartbeat they then said that they would have the doctor do an ultrasound to make sure the baby was o.k.  I started freaking out a little bit but they assured me everything was probably o.k. and that the doctor would check on me in a bit.  The doctor came in with the heart monitor machine and had me lay down.  He found the heartbeat right away and said it was strong and doing just fine.  I asked him if I should have been laying down all along and then told him that the nurses had me sitting up.  He was shocked and said that the nurses clearly needed some new training because you can’t find the heartbeat while sitting up!   I asked him if we could do an ultrasound because I wanted to let everyone know about the baby and needed a new picture for proof haha.  He said that since the machine was already in the room (thanks to the dumb nurses) that he would go ahead and do it.  We got to see our little bean (that is what we have been calling it since day 1) and were amazed at how much progress he or she had made since our appointment 3 weeks before!  It actually looked like a baby and not a little blob anymore!  It had its hand resting on its forehead and then it moved so we got to see its hand and a little foot!  It also had the hiccups so we got to see it jump a few times.   The doc printed a picture for us so we could share the news with everyone and said the baby looked great.   After the checkup Tyler had to go back to work so I wanted to wait for him to get home before we shared our news with the facebook world.  As soon as he got home we were on separate computers and posted the picture at the exact same time (call us lame, I know! Lol).  We were so thrilled to finally share our news with everyone and were a little overwhelmed with all of the love and support we received from everyone!  It makes me so happy to know we will be bringing a baby into this world with as much love and support we have in our lives from friends and family.  We are so excited about baby bean and cannot wait to find out what we are having so we can start shopping!!!  Our 16 week checkup is on October 12 so we will keep everyone updated on things :)  

12w2d!  12 week checkup :)

 

Hiji Falls

The first weekend we were here we wanted to go out and do some exploring.  Our friend Bekah (who has been here quite some time) had a few things in mind for all of us.  We were driving to the North part of the island and depending on what the weather was going to be like, we would make our decision once we got up there.  The weather wasn’t half bad so we decided to go hiking up Hiji Falls.  Bekah is pregnant with twins (she was around 20 weeks at the time) and wanted to be able to hike the falls before she got any bigger or the babies were born.  It was a 45 minute hike up the mountain (I guess you could call it that???) with a ton of stairs!  We were all dying by the time we reached the top but it was such a beautiful thing to see and made the hike all worth it.  

Arriving in Okinawa

Travel day to Okinawa was one of the longest days of my life!  We left our hotel around 1:30 a.m and stood in line at the airport until about 2:30.  We thought we were the smart ones by getting there an hour early but I guess everyone else had the same idea.  The line was sooo long at that point and we were no where near the front!  Lucky for us, we were also nowhere near the back so it was o.k.  We waited and waited and at 2:30 they opened the check-in counters.  It took a good hour for us to get up to the counter to get checked in and ready to go.  After checking in we had to go to the other side of the airport and wait patiently at the terminal.  Boarding time wasn't until around 8 a.m so we had a ton of down time to sit and do nothing.  Once we boarded the plane and took off we were on the first flight for a good 12 hours or so.  Tyler and I were pooped so we slept a lot of the time.  The flight was uncomfortable but they played some good movies and served everyone food so everyone was as happy as they could be in that situation.  We made two stops in two different places in Japan.  One was a two hour layover and the other about 1.5 hours.  We FINALLY made it to Okinawa where we had our friends waiting for us at the airport :)  It was nice to finally be on solid ground and settle down at our friends house.  They all warned us that no matter how tired we were, we would be awake around 4a.m.  Sure enough they were right!  Our body clocks took a few days to get used to the time difference but thankfully not too long! 

Japan!

View from our friends house

another view

Seattle

 

When we first arrived in Seattle on Wednesday night, we were told that we would have a 24 hour lay over due to a typhoon that was heading for Okinawa.  It was my first time doing anything in the USO and they were amazing.  Everyone there was so helpful and knowledgeable about what was going on with our flights.  They pointed us in the right direction to get a hotel voucher for the night and they also suggested a ton of things for us to do in downtown Seattle since we had a lot of down time.  For some reason, we weren’t allowed to get our hotel vouchers until 1 a.m. so we had a little time to hang out in the airport.  When we finally got our voucher we had to wait in a long line for a hotel shuttle bus to pick us up.  Since the hotel wasn’t planning on something like this happening, they only had one bus running.  It was going to take forever to get everyone there so Tyler and I got smart and just hopped in a cab.  We were exhausted and did not feel like waiting forever just to get to the hotel.  We woke up early, checked out of our hotel, and headed back to the airport where we were able to store all of our baggage at the USO so we could spend the day downtown without carrying everything around with us.  We rode the light line (train) downtown and stopped for lunch at the Crab Pot.   It was delish and right on the water so the location was beautiful.  We walked around a bit and ended up at the aquarium since Ty and I are big aquarium buffs.  It was nice but we have seen better haha.  Afterwards we sat down for a bit at a picnic table overlooking the water and rested.  Once we regained our energy, we walked over to Pikes Place Market to check out all of the fuss.   I must say, it was pretty cool.  Fish flying everywhere, beautiful flowers, all kinds of neat knick knacks and so much more.  We then walked over and relaxed in a park for a bit and then took a taxi over to the Space Needle.  We really wanted to go up top and eat an appetizer but sadly, they were all booked up and the tickets to go up to the top just to look were $18 a person….uhhh no thanks.  We walked around the bottom of the needle for a bit and then hopped on the monorail to the mall where we grabbed some lunch.  We then went walking back down to Pikes Place to see the famous Gum Wall and took a few pics there.  It was pretty cool and also pretty gross (named one of the top “germiest”   places once before).  We took another break and called the airlines to find out that our flight was delayed again until Monday morning.  We went back to the airport and grabbed our stuff and headed back to the hotel.  

The next day we wanted to take it easy so we went to see a movie.  We saw “Horrible Bosses” which was funny but not a fav.  We walked around the shopping center area for a while and bought a few things and then headed back to the hotel and ordered room service for dinner.  

The next day was another easy day, we slept in and lounged around most of the day and then headed to the Cheese Cake Factory for a late lunch/early dinner.  We went over to the mall and bought a few things at Borders (since they are going out of business and everything is on sale!) and a few outfits at other places.  We came home and watched a movie on our computer because we were thinking about ordering one on Pay Per View and they were like $14.99….. ummm nope!  

Sunday we spent all day laying in bed and watching our favorite show, Law and Order SVU.  We checked out of our hotel around 1 a.m. because we could check in at the airlines anywhere from 2:30-5:30 a.m. and wanted to get there a little early.  

We had a great time in Seattle on the first day but were ready to leave by the third day.  We rushed around and fit everything downtown into our first day because we were under the impression that it was the only time we would have to see everything.  Seattle is a beautiful town with great artwork everywhere and a ton of things to see.  Luckily we had great weather and it was sunny the whole time we were there.  It was nice waking up to weather in the 60’s and the high for the day being around 78!  Haven’t been around that in a while!! 

Kirstie's Baby Shower

My sister in law is having a little boy in September.  I really wanted to throw her a baby shower since we wouldn’t be there for the birth of our nephew or around for his first few years of life.  She wanted a jungle theme so I ordered a great package from a wonderful website http://blog.bigdotofhappiness.com/   The customer service was great and the products were so cute!  I ordered a cute little cake from a girl I went to high school with that makes amazing cakes.  We had a great time at the shower and Kirstie got a ton of needed things for baby Carson.  We also got to spend a little more time with our family before leaving for Japan.  They all got a chance to come down to Grand Prairie the next day and have dinner with my family at Johnny Carinos.  It was nice to spend time with them all and have them all together.  We said our goodbyes and they headed back to their place.    

Cake!

Little Tyler enjoying the party :)

Gift Bags

The parents-to-be

Dinner at Johnny Carinos

Love our niece and nephew!

Mom and kids

Ellie

Sweet boy